Examination of the psychometric properties of the French translation of the Maternal Antenatal Attachment Scale (MAAS)

Background. Prenatal attachment (PA) is defined as the relationship that develops between a woman and her foetus. Three measurements exist for evaluating PA: the Maternal Foetal Attachment Scale (MFAS), the Maternal Antenatal Attachment Scale (MAAS) and the Prenatal Attachment Inventory (PAI). Of these three, only the PAI has been used in French. Objectives. The overall objective of the current study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of this second measure of PA: the MAAS. This scale was developed in 1993 by Condon. The MAAS is a 19-item self-report questionnaire which allows for calculating a total attachment score and two subscale scores; one score estimating the quality of the affective attachment experience and the other that estimates the intensity of concern about the foetus. For each item, the future mother provided an appreciation on a 5-point Liken scale (1 = absence of feelings for the foetus; 5 = very strong feelings for the foetus). Method. The sample was composed of 117 primiparous French females (27.5 +/- 4.27 years) in the third trimester of pregnancy (32.84 +/- 3.77 weeks of amenorrhea). The study was carried out over a period of 5 months (January May 2012). Each woman was asked to provide demographic data, a French version of the MAAS, a validated French version of the PAI, and a scale evaluating depressive symptoms (Edinburgh PostNatal Depression Scale, EPDS). Results. The MAAS demonstrated moderately good psychometric properties. Condon's two-factor structure of MAAS was not supported in our sample. Four factors were identified with exploratory factor analysis. Internal consistency was satisfactory for the global scale and for the factor 1 but not sufficiently adequate for the other factors. Concurrent validity was indicated by moderate correlations between the global MAAS scores with the total PAI score. A weak but significant inverse correlation was found between the MAAS and the EPDS suggesting good divergent validity. Conclusion. The authors suggest that additional research be conducted on the measurement before confirming the validity of the French version. (C) L'Encephale, Paris, 2013.